Read Online A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Linwood Barclay
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beyond that. No private messages back and forth.
But right now, I wasn’t interested in who Scott’s friends were. I wanted to know who Claire’s friends were. So I clicked on her name, went to her Facebook page, and immediately saw that she had more than five hundred of them. This could take a while. But I was confident that anyone she could talk into posing as her was going to be a Facebook friend.
First, I looked at photos she’d posted, but there were only a few, including the one that Haines had shown me on his phone. I found a couple of party shots featuring a girl who looked like the one from my car, but the photos hadn’t been tagged with identifying names.
I clicked on Claire’s friends list and started scrolling through it, looking at all the postage stamp–sized faces, hunting for the girl who’d tried to pass herself off as Claire.
If only it were that simple.
Not only were the profile images small, but many of them were poorly shot, or featured the individual with others. Lots of Claire’s friends, like millions of others on Facebook, didn’t even use a picture of themselves for their profile. They used shots of famous people. For example, one boy, Bryson Davies, was passing himself off as George Clooney. Another, Desmond Flint, was Gort, the robot from
The Day the Earth Stood Still
. Several kids were animated cartoon characters, like Snoopy, or Cartman from
South Park.
The girls also embraced this practice. Elizabeth Pink, I was sure, was not a dead ringer for Lady Gaga. If Patrice Hengle looked like her profile image, then she needed help. She’d posted a photo of a pepperoni pizza slice.
If none of Claire’s female friends whose profiles featured actual pictures of themselves looked like the girl I was searching for, I would come back to these, click on their personal pages and hunt for more representative photos. At least, I would search those whose profiles I could access. If Scott and Claire did not have these friends in common, there was a strong likelihood I wouldn’t be able to get into their personal pages, given that I was signed in as Scott.
All these new opportunities for digging into people’s private lives presented an equal number of obstacles.
Slowly, I scrolled through the list and studied female faces. Many were easy to dismiss immediately. They were too old, or had different hair or skin color. Every time I spotted a blond girl in her teens I stopped, clicked on the pic, and went to the individual’s personal page to view a larger image. When I found it was the wrong person, I went back and repeated the process.
“You’re invading his privacy, you know. I still think those things matter.”
I looked up from the laptop screen to see Donna standing in the doorway to the kitchen.
“Right now, I’m invading someone else’s privacy,” I said. “It’s kind of how I’ve made my living for some time now in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Let it go.”
“I told you, this isn’t about Scott.”
“It’s about this girl you picked up.”
“Gave a ride to,” I said.
“What did you say her name was?”
“Claire.”
“Claire what?”
“Claire Sanders.”
Donna’s eyebrows went up. “Bertram Sanders has a daughter named Claire. Is that who you picked up?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s missing? That’s who Brindle and his partner were asking you about?”
“That’s right.”
She folded her arms. Concern pushed anger from her face. “That must be so awful for him.”
“Him?”
“Well, his wife—his ex-wife—too, of course. He’s divorced.”
“You seem to know a lot about him.”
“He’s the mayor, and he’s in the station all the time, not that he’s particularly welcome there. He likes to come in and harangue Augie on a regular basis.”
Augustus Perry. The police chief. Someone whose unlisted home number was in my own phone’s contact list, for reasons that were more than professional. I thought back to the item I’d read in the
But right now, I wasn’t interested in who Scott’s friends were. I wanted to know who Claire’s friends were. So I clicked on her name, went to her Facebook page, and immediately saw that she had more than five hundred of them. This could take a while. But I was confident that anyone she could talk into posing as her was going to be a Facebook friend.
First, I looked at photos she’d posted, but there were only a few, including the one that Haines had shown me on his phone. I found a couple of party shots featuring a girl who looked like the one from my car, but the photos hadn’t been tagged with identifying names.
I clicked on Claire’s friends list and started scrolling through it, looking at all the postage stamp–sized faces, hunting for the girl who’d tried to pass herself off as Claire.
If only it were that simple.
Not only were the profile images small, but many of them were poorly shot, or featured the individual with others. Lots of Claire’s friends, like millions of others on Facebook, didn’t even use a picture of themselves for their profile. They used shots of famous people. For example, one boy, Bryson Davies, was passing himself off as George Clooney. Another, Desmond Flint, was Gort, the robot from
The Day the Earth Stood Still
. Several kids were animated cartoon characters, like Snoopy, or Cartman from
South Park.
The girls also embraced this practice. Elizabeth Pink, I was sure, was not a dead ringer for Lady Gaga. If Patrice Hengle looked like her profile image, then she needed help. She’d posted a photo of a pepperoni pizza slice.
If none of Claire’s female friends whose profiles featured actual pictures of themselves looked like the girl I was searching for, I would come back to these, click on their personal pages and hunt for more representative photos. At least, I would search those whose profiles I could access. If Scott and Claire did not have these friends in common, there was a strong likelihood I wouldn’t be able to get into their personal pages, given that I was signed in as Scott.
All these new opportunities for digging into people’s private lives presented an equal number of obstacles.
Slowly, I scrolled through the list and studied female faces. Many were easy to dismiss immediately. They were too old, or had different hair or skin color. Every time I spotted a blond girl in her teens I stopped, clicked on the pic, and went to the individual’s personal page to view a larger image. When I found it was the wrong person, I went back and repeated the process.
“You’re invading his privacy, you know. I still think those things matter.”
I looked up from the laptop screen to see Donna standing in the doorway to the kitchen.
“Right now, I’m invading someone else’s privacy,” I said. “It’s kind of how I’ve made my living for some time now in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Let it go.”
“I told you, this isn’t about Scott.”
“It’s about this girl you picked up.”
“Gave a ride to,” I said.
“What did you say her name was?”
“Claire.”
“Claire what?”
“Claire Sanders.”
Donna’s eyebrows went up. “Bertram Sanders has a daughter named Claire. Is that who you picked up?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s missing? That’s who Brindle and his partner were asking you about?”
“That’s right.”
She folded her arms. Concern pushed anger from her face. “That must be so awful for him.”
“Him?”
“Well, his wife—his ex-wife—too, of course. He’s divorced.”
“You seem to know a lot about him.”
“He’s the mayor, and he’s in the station all the time, not that he’s particularly welcome there. He likes to come in and harangue Augie on a regular basis.”
Augustus Perry. The police chief. Someone whose unlisted home number was in my own phone’s contact list, for reasons that were more than professional. I thought back to the item I’d read in the
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